Payback

By Deb Loughead

This is the fourth story featuring Dylan O'Connor after The Snowball Effect, Caught in the Act, and Rise of the Zombie Scarecrows.

Dylan O'Connor is in trouble again. While riding his bike home after dark, he has a run-in with a truck but doesn't give it a second thought until police show up at his door the next day. CCTV cameras put Dylan at the scene of a crime, and when the police question him, Dylan realizes he was an inadvertent witness. But he doesn't tell them the driver of the truck was Jeff Walker, a nasty piece of work. Dylan knows it's in his best interests to keep his mouth shut. Then he starts getting stalked by Jeff's weirdo sidekick, Eliot Barnes, a classmate of Dylan's. Is Eliot trying to protect Dylan, or is he making sure he stays silent?

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Sep 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781459814714

Deb Loughead

Deb Loughead is the author of more than forty books for children and young adults including Wildfire, Payback and Rise of the Zombie Scarecrows in the Orca Currents line. Her books have been translated into seven languages, and her award-winning poetry and adult fiction have appeared in a variety of Canadian publications. Deb has conducted workshops and held readings at schools, festivals and conferences across the country. She lives in Toronto.

Book preview

Chapter One

That’s not even a real word! Nice try though, Dylan.

My girlfriend, Monica, sat across the table, shaking her head.

"It is so a word. Mettal. M-E-T-T-A-L. My grandmother uses it all the time. She says that kids these days don’t have any."

"That’s not how you spell it. You made up a hybrid of metal and mettle, said Ivy. So, you want to challenge it or what?"

Face it, Cory said. You got caught, dude.

Okay, so I miss a turn. Big deal, I said. I’m in last place anyway.

Ever since we’d started our Retro Thursdays board-game night, my friend Cory and I had learned a whole lot more words and brushed up on our spelling too. A while back we’d discovered the hard way that girls aren’t as okay with chilling in front of a screen playing video games all night the way guys are. They actually like to talk. Face-to-face. So our compromise was playing board games one evening a week.

I sneaked a peek at the cell phone on my lap. (One of the rules of board-game night was no phones on the table.) It was already well past my ten pm weeknight curfew. I knew little kids who went to bed later than ten o’clock on weeknights and midnight on weekends.

Crap. I gotta get moving anyway, I said, then dumped the rest of my Scrabble tiles into the little cloth bag. You know Gran. She’ll probably freak out when I walk in late.

I’m sticking around to finish this, Cory said. I’ll head home with Ivy later. Hope your grandmother doesn’t get too mad and ground you or something.

Yep, that would totally suck, I said.

Monica walked me to her front door. We ducked into the closet where nobody could see us for a few minutes to say goodbye properly.

Maybe if I talk to your grandmother, she’ll realize you’re not a kid anymore and at least let you stay out until ten thirty on weeknights, Monica said between kisses.

Monica was good at sweet-talking my grandmother. But Gran was a stubborn one, and I figured she’d never bend this rule.

Give it your best shot, I said. But you know her. She thinks danger lurks around every corner at one minute past ten. And at one minute past midnight on weekends, of course.

Monica laughed and gave me one last hug. Text me when you get home, okay? she said.

Bridgewood was like a ghost town on weeknights, and tonight was no exception. It wasn’t exactly biking weather either. Winter had hung on for way too long, and patches of crusty old snow were still waiting for spring to work its magic. As I wheeled toward the apartment where I lived with my mom and grandmother, I was wishing big-time that I’d been smart enough to wear one of Gran’s itchy caps. And even though I was wearing the heavy woolen hoodie she had knit me for Christmas, I was still shivering.

I rode with frozen hands. Not smart to forget my gloves. And every time I pulled my hood up, the wind would blow it right back off again. So I guess I wasn’t paying attention, because suddenly, from out of nowhere, a black pickup truck was right in front of me.

I hit the brakes and veered to the right just in time, wobbling up onto the lot of the local car dealership. I blew off a couple of choice words for being so dumb and realized I was even shaking a bit. Then I looked over at the truck beside me. The engine was idling, and the passenger window was cracked open. A thin stream of smoke wafted out.

Hey, dude, a gravelly voice said. How’s it going? Dazed-looking eyes peered out at me. The guy sounded a bit familiar.

All good, I said. Kind of in a hurry though.

Would you just shut up? the driver said to the passenger and let off a nasty rant as the window slid up. The engine revved, and the truck sped off. But not before I noticed that the license plate was filthy. The rest of the truck was very clean.

Weird, I thought. I got back on my bike and headed for home.

It was already well past ten when I got there. I locked my bike to the rack at the bottom of the stairwell and took the steps up to the apartment two at a time. Outside the door, I tried not to rattle my keys as I slipped the right one into the lock. The door clicked open. Maybe Gran would be asleep on the sofa, and I wouldn’t get an earful. I tiptoed inside and set my backpack down as quietly as possible.

The tv wasn’t even turned on. Strange. I crept from room to room. No sign of Gran anywhere. I hadn’t seen her since I’d